The Wolf's Gold (25 page)

A curt laugh sounded from behind the prince, and Inarmaz pushed his horse to the front of the group, his powerful stallion biting bad temperedly at the beasts in its way.

‘Go on then, Roman, show the prince here the way out of his dilemma. Doubtless it will involve your being allowed to leave unharmed?’

Marcus opened and raised his hands, stepping slowly forward while the arrowheads tracked his movement. The polished iron head of Amnoz’s kontos dropped to meet him, its point digging lightly into his mailed chest in a clear warning, and Marcus smiled up at the man with his teeth bared.

‘As to your last point, Inarmaz, the answer is more than likely yes; I assure you that I will be walking away from this place. But to understand why that would be the case, you might want to consider the possibility that far from protecting me from you and his father’s men, Prince Galatas might be trying to protect you from
me
?’ He stared at Amnoz for a moment longer, then spat on the ground before the horses’ feet.

Galatas whipped out a hand, taking a handful of the tunic protruding from beneath Amnoz’s mail shirt and preventing him from dismounting with a sudden harsh word of command. Turning back to Marcus he narrowed his eyes in question.

‘You wish to forfeit the traditional protection I am obliged to offer you, given that you have returned simply to bring my father’s body to me?’

Marcus nodded curtly, staring at Amnoz with an intensity that was only partly feigned.

‘I do. I challenge
him
to a duel in the manner I am told is traditional for your tribe, one sword and two men, with only one allowed to leave the ring of shields. Does he accept, or is his bravery nothing more than a show to impress the boy he keeps in his tent?’

Inarmaz looked down at him with an ugly grin.

‘My son may not speak your tongue the way I do, but I’m sure he’ll have recognised the term you just used. Unless you’re as good in the circle as you seem to believe, Roman, you’ll soon find yourself on your back in the mud with your guts split open and the dogs pulling at your entrails.’

He nodded to his son, and the bodyguard shouted a string of orders to the peasant infantrymen gathered behind the horses. While Marcus watched they hurriedly formed a wide circle around him, planting their shields in an uninterrupted barrier of wood and iron that would hem the combatants into the arena in which their fate would be decided. The prince dismounted and took a shield from one of them, carrying it across to Marcus and handing it to him with a grimace.

‘You’re possibly the bravest man I have met, Centurion, or the most stupid. Probably both. Unless your supreme self-confidence is justified, Amnoz will play with you for a while before crippling you in order to have his sport, and then when you are too weak even to beg for the mercy stroke, he will most assuredly open your body and leave you here, alive but helpless for the dogs. I’ve seen him fight a dozen such duels, and trust me, there’s no contest involved. For Amnoz such matters are simply sport.’ He looked Marcus hard in the eyes, shaking his head slightly. ‘The conditions for this contest are simple. Firstly, you must fight bareheaded.’

Marcus loosened the strap of his helmet and took it off, handing the heavy iron bowl to Galatas, who in turn passed it to one of the men forming the circle. Amnoz shouted a comment across to the warrior, and the men around them laughed at his words while Galatas smiled darkly, drawing his sword from its scabbard. Marcus looked down at the blade, wondering how heavy it would be in comparison to his own patterned spatha. The weapon’s hilt was decorated with a pommel fashioned in the shape of an eagle’s talons gripping a ball of metal.

‘If you are needing any motivation then it might help for you to know Amnoz is telling him to take good care of that helmet, since he’ll be wearing it from now on. Very shortly now I will place this sword in the ground in the middle of the ring, and at my signal the fight will begin. The first man to the sword has the right to draw it from the earth and attack the other in whatever way he chooses, while his opponent can resist that attack by any means at his disposal. Do you understand?’

Marcus looked across the ring at his opponent, seeing the confidence in Amnoz’s eyes as he swung his arms in a perfunctory warm-up.

‘I understand. And for my part, I’m told that Amnoz is a good swordsman, not supremely talented but faster and stronger than most of your men. He’s also somewhat overconfident, and stronger on his right-hand side than his left. And your uncle Balodi sends you his regards. Do
you
understand?’

Galatas nodded in response to the question with an expression of slight bafflement and then turned away, firmly planting the sword’s blade in the turf between the combatants before stepping back out of the ring of shields which closed behind him, isolating the two men within an arena roughly thirty feet across. Amnoz nodded to his father before turning to face Marcus, and silence fell across the circle as the men around them watched the Roman square up to their champion with grins of anticipation. Galatas gave the necessary signal to a warrior holding a horn, and as the instrument touched the man’s lips Amnoz sprinted forward to rip the sword from the turf with a triumphant shout while Marcus stood and watched, allowing his shield’s rim to rest on the ground at his feet. The Sarmatae turned to his comrades and raised the weapon in triumph, receiving their cheers with the outstretched arms of a victorious gladiator, but his look of glee faded when he turned to the Roman only to find him watching the spectacle with apparent disinterest. Raising the sword to his lips, Amnoz kissed its blade reverentially to renewed cheers, then swung it with a smirk to point at Marcus, stepping into a fighting stance and advancing slowly towards his intended victim.

Still the Roman waited and watched, holding back from making any move until the weapon’s point was only feet away from his face. Sliding one foot back he raised his right arm to bring the shield into place, watching Amnoz’s eyes over the rim and waiting impassively for him to make the first move, hoping that his immobility would be taken for fear by the grinning barbarian. With a casual shrug to his comrades the champion stepped in closer, swinging his sword in a vicious attack at Marcus’s bare head. The blade clanged off the Roman’s raised shield in a flash of sparks from its iron rim, and the centurion stepped back again, pulling the shield back close to his body, while the men in the ring of shields jeered at the tactic. Amnoz swung the heavy blade again without any pause, attacking with a horizontal cut that hammered a deep groove in the wooden board and jarred Marcus backwards to renewed cheers from the men around them. Again the Roman stepped back, pulling the shield so close to his body that his nose was almost touching the iron rim, reaching stealthily to his belt with his left hand behind its cover. Sensing victory, Amnoz swung the sword up over his head, clearly aiming to chop it down into the shield with enough force to split the iron rim and cleave the wood behind it asunder, but as the heavy blade reached the height of its swing Marcus stepped decisively forward, taking a deep lungful of air as he did so. Pushing the right-hand edge of his shield behind his opponent’s board he bellowed defiantly into Amnoz’s face, then used the momentary advantage of surprise to wrench the other man’s shield away from his body. Discarding his own shield he stepped in close and reached up to take the other man’s raised sword arm in a powerful grip that held the weapon uselessly in the air above them.

Amnoz had only an instant in which to realise that the Roman was armed before the knife was between his ribs, shuddering as Marcus pushed a hunting blade of polished metal the length of a man’s hand through his mail armour and into his chest. Looking down he frowned in disbelief at the sudden shock of the wound, staring with blank eyes at the odd swirling pattern which decorated that portion of the blade not buried deep in his chest. A shocked hush fell across the circle, and the warriors around them watched in amazement as Marcus, keeping a firm hold of the wounded warrior’s sword hand with his left hand, twisted the knife’s handle to bring the blade’s cutting edge uppermost and dragging a groan of pain from the agonised champion’s lips. Setting his teeth in a snarl, the Roman wrenched the steel up through his ribs, angling the blade to carve its point into his opponent’s heart. Amnoz died where he stood, his eyes rolling upwards, and his body sagging loosely on pain-stiffened legs. Releasing his grip on the knife’s handle Marcus pried the sword from the dying man’s slack grip, leaving the smaller blade buried deep in his chest and kicking hard at the tottering corpse to send it sprawling into the centre of the circle.

After a moment’s stunned silence, Galatas stepped into the ring of shields, but as he opened his mouth to speak Inarmaz shouldered his way into the circle from behind him, his other son a pace behind. Ripping his sword from its scabbard the noble pushed his nephew aside and stalked forward to pick up his dead son’s shield, ignoring the angry words his prince was shouting at him, while Amnoz’s brother Alardy took a shield from one of the men lining the circle. Marcus took stock of Inarmaz’s older son in that brief moment while Galatas railed at the nobleman, watching as the heavily built warrior hefted his sword and stared back at him over the shield’s rim. Pointing his blade at Marcus, Inarmaz barked a terse sentence over his shoulder in his own language, smiling grimly as Galatas fell silent. Stepping forward until the two men’s swords were close enough to touch, Inarmaz spat out his fury in a tone edged with hatred.

‘My nephew tells me that I risk the dishonour of our tribe by offering you further violence. He tells me that you defeated my son in a fair fight and that we should now respect your victory and allow you to leave. And I, Roman, have told him that I will either have your head or
his
.’

Marcus smiled grimly back at him, raising the sword to point it at Alardy.

‘You’re sure you want to do this, Inarmaz? You’ve only one son left now. What if I put Alardy on the pyre alongside Amnoz? Who will you plot to put on the throne in place of Galatas then? Yourself, perhaps?’

Inarmaz’s eyes narrowed.

‘Accusing me of treason won’t save you from my revenge, Roman. Defend yourself!’

The two men advanced to either side of Marcus, and at Inarmaz’s signal they attacked fast, hammering at his defences with the fury of men whose world had been ripped to shreds before their eyes. Ducking under a sword-cut aimed at his head, Marcus spun, slashing the prince’s sword at Alardy’s legs with the aim of hamstringing him, but the sword was heavier and slower to wield than he was used to, and the warrior danced away from his attack with a mocking grin as the sword’s blade ended its swing practically resting on the centurion’s shoulder. Inarmaz waded into the fight, smashing at the Roman’s shield with his sword, and Marcus met the weapon’s threat with the polished iron centre of his shield, wincing as the collision of blade and boss instantly numbed his left hand. Barely hanging onto the board’s handle he stepped decisively inside Inarmaz’s defences with Galatas’s sword still held with its long blade pointing back over his shoulder and the heavy iron pommel decoration pointing forward. Dropping the shield he grabbed the noble’s heavy gold chain to prevent him from pulling back, and while Inarmaz was still trying to bring his sword to bear, the Roman smashed the pommel into his forehead with all the force he could muster.

A bellow of rage gave him an instant’s warning that Alardy was upon him, and in a flash of inspiration he used his grip on the chain to drag Inarmaz towards him, ducking away as he pulled the dazed noble into his son’s path. The warrior battered his father aside with his shield, ignoring him as he sprawled full length in the mud and squaring up to the Roman with a furious glare, kicking his enemy’s discarded shield away to prevent him from recovering it.

‘I shouldn’t imagine your father will be very happy when he recovers his wits.’

Alardy half laughed and half snarled his response, wristing his sword in an extravagant swishing arc.

‘He’ll be happy enough when I show him what’s left of you being dragged apart by his hunting dogs. You’re without a shield now, and no fancy sword tricks are going to save you.’

He attacked with fresh energy, and the Roman found himself hard-pressed under the flurry of his sword blows, falling back under the onslaught, able to do little more than deflect the strikes while waiting in vain for an opening in his opponent’s defence. Stepping back again, he felt the hard surface of a shield behind his rearmost heel, and at that moment a hand pushed hard into the square of his back, momentarily unbalancing him. As he staggered forward Alardy sprang to attack him, swinging his heavy blade in a lethal arc that Marcus barely managed to deflect with his own weapon, hooking his booted foot behind the Roman’s ankle and pulling him off balance before barging him to the ground. Standing on the blade of the prince’s sword, Alardy lowered the point of his own weapon to Marcus’s throat and grinned mirthlessly down at him, breathing hard from his exertion.

‘See? No shield, and now no sword either.’

Marcus looked up at him, then switched his focus to stare at the other side of the circle.

‘True. But I do still have one last weapon. Your uncle Balodi.’

For a moment Alardy frowned down at the Roman, uncomprehending, and then his eyes widened in shock, his back arching and the breath explosively bursting from his mouth as something hit him hard in the back. Rolling away from the sword’s point, Marcus got to his feet to see the young warrior drop his weapons and put a hand to the spot where a red-painted arrow protruded from his back. Gathering up the prince’s sword the Roman strode across to the dazed Inarmaz who had managed to get back to his feet, putting the weapon’s point to the Sarmatae noble’s throat while he was still staring aghast at his son’s plight. Tottering for a moment as the impact of his wound sank in, Alardy abruptly dropped to one knee as a line of bloody saliva ran down his chin and onto his mailed chest, lifting his eyes to meet Marcus’s pitiless gaze for a moment before his eyes rolled up to show only their whites. Pitching full length into the mud he lay twitching beside his brother while the Roman watched several warriors push their way through Inarmaz’s men with their swords drawn, shouting loudly in their own language and using the flats of their blades on those who were slow to yield to their advance. Moving quickly, they strode across the circle to stand around their prince while Balodi, now dressed in the furs of a noble, pushed through the shields and into the circle at the head of another larger group of his followers. His assured swagger was clearly intended to give the impression of a man who knew that events were running his way.